Early life

Davis was born January 21, 1956, in Wareham, Massachusetts. Her mother, Lucille (née Cook; June 19, 1919 - November 15, 2001), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis (November 7, 1913 - April 2, 2009), was a civil engineer and church deacon; her parents were both from small towns in Vermont. She has a brother named Danforth ("Dan").

At an early age, she became interested in music. She learned piano and flute and played organ well enough as a teenager to serve as an organist at her Congregationalist church in Wareham.

Davis attended Wareham High School and was an exchange student in Sandviken, Sweden, becoming fluent in Swedish. Enrolling at New England College, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in Drama from Boston University in 1979. Davis is a member of Mensa, a social organization whose members are in the top 2% of intelligence.

Following her education, Davis served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor until signing with New York's Zoli modeling agency.

Career

Davis was working as a model when she was cast by director Sydney Pollack in his film Tootsie (1982) as a soap opera actress. She followed the role with the part of Wendy Killian in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill, which aired from June 1983 to March 1984. She also wrote the Buffalo Bill episode entitled "Miss WBFL." During the run of Buffalo Bill, in 1983, Davis also appeared as Grace Fallon in an episode of Knight Rider entitled "K.I.T.T. the Cat". Her television credits from the mid-1980s also include one episode of Riptide, three episodes of Family Ties, and an episode of Remington Steele. This was followed by a series of her own, Sara, which lasted thirteen episodes.

After roles in Fletch, The Fly, Angie, Beetlejuice, and several other movies Davis received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her appearance in The Accidental Tourist (1988), and a Best Actress nomination for her role in Thelma & Louise (1991). Davis replaced Debra Winger in the role of Dottie Hinson in A League of Their Own (1992), and received a Best Actress Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance. She then co-starred in Hero alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia.

Davis then teamed up with then-husband, director Renny Harlin, for the films Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight (both 1996). She and Harlin co-produced the films. Davis was nominated for the Saturn Awards for her performances as Samantha/Charlie in The Long Kiss Goodnight, and as Eleanor Little in Stuart Little (1999), a role she reprised in 2002 and again in 2005.

In 2000-2001, Davis starred in the short-lived sitcom The Geena Davis Show. In early 2004 she guest-starred as Grace Adler's sister, Janet, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. She went on to star in the ABC television series Commander in Chief, portraying the first female President of the United States. This role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2006, and she also was nominated for an Emmy Award and a SAG Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series. Also in 2006, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award.

She starred in the Australian-produced, American-set Accidents Happen, which was released in April 2010.

During the 11th season of Grey's Anatomy, Davis played a recurring role as Dr. Nicole Herman, who is an attending fetal surgeon who has a life-threatening brain tumor.

In October 2015, it was announced that Davis would be starring in the film adaptation of Marjorie Prime alongside Jon Hamm.

Personal life

On September 1, 2001, Davis married Iranian-American plastic surgeon, Reza Jarrahy (b. 1971). They have three children: daughter Alizeh Keshvar Jarrahy (born April 10, 2002) and fraternal twin sons Kian William Jarrahy and Kaiis Steven Jarrahy (born May 6, 2004). The marriage is Davis's fourth.

She was previously married to Richard Emmolo (March 25, 1982 - February 26, 1983); actor Jeff Goldblum (1987-1990), with whom she starred in three films, Transylvania 6-5000, The Fly, and Earth Girls Are Easy; and Renny Harlin (1993-98), who directed her in Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Activism

Davis is fronting the Women's Sports Foundation campaign Geena Takes Aim in support of Title IX, an Act of Congress focusing on equality in sports opportunities, now expanded to prohibit gender discrimination in United States' educational institutions.

In 2004, while watching children's television programs and videos with her daughter, Davis noticed an imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. Davis went on to sponsor the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children's entertainment (resulting in 4 discrete studies, including one on children's television) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, showed that there were nearly 3 males to every 1 female character in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students analyzed.

In 2005, Davis teamed up with the non-profit group, Dads and Daughters, to launch a venture dedicated to balancing the number of male and female characters in children's TV and movie programming.

Davis launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007. The Institute's first focus is an on-the-ground program that works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children and to reduce stereotyping of females by the male-dominated industry. For her work in this field she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in May 2009.

In 2011, Davis became one of a handful of celebrities attached to USAID and Ad Council's FWD campaign, an awareness initiative tied to that year's East Africa drought. She joined Uma Thurman, Chanel Iman and Josh Hartnett in TV and internet ads to "forward the facts" about the crisis.

In 2015, Davis launched an annual film festival to be held in Bentonville, Arkansas, to highlight diversity in film, accepting films that prominently feature minorities and women in the cast and crew. The Bentonville Film Festival took place from May 5-9, 2015, and began accepting submissions on January 15.

Sports

In July 1999, Davis was one of 300 women who vied for a semifinals berth in the U.S. Olympic archery team to participate in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. She placed 24th of 300 and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition. Davis has stated that she was not an athlete growing up and that her introduction to archery was in 1997, two years prior to her tryouts.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1982	Tootsie	April Page
1985	Fletch	Larry
1985	Transylvania 6-5000	Odette
1986	Fly, TheThe Fly	Veronica 'Ronnie' Quaife
1988	Beetlejuice	Barbara Maitland
1988	Earth Girls Are Easy	Valerie Gail
1988	Accidental Tourist, TheThe Accidental Tourist	Muriel Pritchett
1990	Quick Change	Phyllis Potter
1991	Thelma & Louise	Thelma Dickinson
1992	League of Their Own, AA League of Their Own	Dottie Hinson
1992	Hero	Gale Gayley
1994	Angie	Angie Scacciapensieri
1994	Speechless	Julia Mann
1995	Cutthroat Island	Morgan Adams
1996	Long Kiss Goodnight, TheThe Long Kiss Goodnight	Samantha Caine / Charlene 'Charly' Baltimore
1999	Stuart Little	Mrs. Eleanor Little
2002	Stuart Little 2	Mrs. Eleanor Little
2005	Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild	Mrs. Eleanor Little (voice)	Video
2009	Accidents Happen	Gloria Conway
2013	In a World...	Katherine Huling
2014	When Marnie Was There	Yoriko Sasaki (voice)	English version
2016	Me Him Her	Mrs. Ehrlick
2016	Marjorie Prime	Tess	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Knight Rider	Grace Fallon	"K.I.T.T. the Cat"
1983-1984	Buffalo Bill	Wendy Killian	Main role
1984	Fantasy Island	Whitney Clark	1 episode
1984	Riptide	Dr. Melba Bozinsky	"Raiders of the Lost Sub"
1984-1986	Family Ties	Karen Nicholson	"Help Wanted", "Karen II, Alex 0", "A Word to the Wise"
1985	Secret Weapons	Tamara Reshevsky / Brenda	TV film
1985	Remington Steele	Sandy Dalrymple	"Steele in the Chips"
1985	Sara	Sara McKenna	Main role
1989	Trying Times	Daphne	"The Hit List"
2000-2001	Geena Davis Show, TheThe Geena Davis Show	Teddie Cochran	Main role
2004	Will & Grace	Janet Adler	"The Accidental Tsuris"
2005-2006	Commander in Chief	President Mackenzie Allen	Main role
2009	Exit 19	Gloria Woods	TV film
2012	Coma	Dr. Agnetta Lindquist	TV miniseries
2013	Untitled Bounty Hunter Project	Mackenzie Ryan	Unsold TV pilot
2013	Doc McStuffins	Princess Persephone (voice)	1 episode
2014-2015	Grey's Anatomy	Dr. Nicole Herman	Recurring role
2015	Annedroids	Student	"Undercover Pigeon"
2016	The Exorcist	Angela Rance	Lead role

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
1987	Saturn Awards	Best Actress	The Fly	Nominated
1989	Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress	The Accidental Tourist	Won
1991	Boston Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Won
1991	Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1991	National Board of Review	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Won
1991	New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	Academy Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	BAFTA Awards	Best Actress in a Leading Role	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Actress	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	MTV Movie Awards	Best On-Screen Duo	Thelma & Louise	Nominated
1992	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture Actress	Herself	Nominated
1993	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	A League of Their Own	Nominated
1993	MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance	A League of Their Own	Nominated
1995	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy	Speechless	Nominated
1997	Saturn Awards	Best Actress	The Long Kiss Goodnight	Nominated
2000	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Stuart Little	Nominated
2005	Satellite Awards	Best Actress - Television Series Drama	Commander in Chief	Nominated
2006	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Television Series Drama	Commander in Chief	Won
2006	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series	Commander in Chief	Nominated
2006	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series	Commander in Chief	Nominated

Charities

Geena Davis supports the following charitable causes: Diabetes, Women's Issues, Rape/Sexual Abuse.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]